ready to uphold
the rights of France during the long discussions over the regulation of
the frontiers. In old papers ancient titles were found, and by degrees
the villages, Burghs, and even principalities, claimed by King Louis XIV.
were re-united quietly to France; King Charles XI. was thus alienated, in
consequence of the seizure of the countship of Deux-Ponts, to which
Sweden laid claim. Strasburg was taken by a surprise. This free city
had several times violated neutrality during the war; Louvois had kept up
communications inside the place; suddenly he had the approaches and the
passage over the Rhine occupied by thirty-five thousand men on the night
between the 16th and 17th of September, 1681; the burgesses sent up to
ask aid from the emperor, but the messengers were arrested; on the 30th
Strasburg capitulated, and Louis XIV. made his triumphant entry there on
the 24th of October. "Nobody," says a letter of the day, "can recover
from the consternation caused by the fact that the French have taken
Strasburg without firing a single shot; everybody says it is one of the
wheels of the chariot to be used for a drive into the empire, and that
the door of Elsass is shut from this moment."

The very day of the surrender of Strasburg (September 30, 1681), Catinat,
with a corps of French troops, entered Casale, sold to Louis XIV. by the
Duke of Mantua. The king thought to make sure of Piedmont by marrying
his niece, Monsieur's daughter, to the Duke of Savoy, Victor-Amadeo,
quite a boy, delicate and taciturn, at loggerheads with his mother and
with her favorites. Marie Louise d'Orleans, elder sister of the young
Duchess of Savoy, had married the King of Spain, Charles II., a sickly
creature of weak intellect. Louis XIV. felt the necessity of forming new
alliances; the old supports of France had all gone over to the enemy.
Sweden and Holland were already allied to the empire; the German princes
joined the coalition. The Prince of Orange, with an ever-vigilant eye on
the frequent infractions of the treaties which France permitted herself
to commit, was quietly negotiating with his allies, and ready to take up
arms to meet the common danger. "He was," says Massillon, "a prince
profound in his views, skilful in forming leagues and banding spirits
together, more successful in exciting wars than on the battle-field, more
to be feared in the privacy of the closet than at the head of armies, a
prince and an enemy whom hatre